Virtual machine instance data aggregation based on work definition metadata

ABSTRACT

A service provider launches an index analysis computing system instance to evaluate logs generated by a virtual computing system server to identify events encountered by the server. The index analysis computing system instance obtains, from a datastore, a data log for the virtual computing system server and uses the log to identify the events. The index analysis computing system instance identifies, based on data from the log associated with the events, tasks to be performed to obtain processor state data for the server. The index analysis computing system instance generates, based on the identified tasks, a metadata for a file, where the metadata represents the tasks to be performed. This file is transmitted to a scheduler computing system instance which can identify the tasks based on the metadata for the file.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application incorporates by reference for all purposes the fulldisclosure of co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/195,773,filed concurrently herewith, entitled “VIRTUAL MACHINE INSTANCE DATAAGGREGATION.”

BACKGROUND

Computing resource service providers and other service providers oftenevaluate data logs for their computing resources to identify and trackevents as they occur. For instance, customers of these service providersmay want to obtain data for their computing resources to identify theunderlying causes for any events that may have occurred. However, usingthe computer resources themselves to generate and evaluate data logs maybe resource intensive, causing fewer resources to be available for acustomer's use. Further, the ability to identify and track events may bedifficult as monitoring systems may evaluate data logs periodically,which may delay the ability to identify and diagnose any issues with acustomer's computing resources.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Various techniques will be described with reference to the drawings, inwhich:

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative example of an environment in which variousembodiments can be implemented;

FIG. 2 shows an illustrative example of an environment in which one ormore computing system instances are used to obtain data from variousdata logs generated by one or more virtual computer system servers inaccordance with at least one embodiment;

FIG. 3 shows an illustrative example of an environment in which ascheduler computing system instance evaluates filenames from filesobtained from an index analysis computing system instance to determinetask definitions for the data log analysis computing system instances inaccordance with at least one embodiment;

FIG. 4 shows an illustrative example of an environment in which ascheduler computing system instance evaluates a filename to determinethe operations to be performed in obtaining data from one or more datalogs in accordance with at least one embodiment;

FIG. 5 shows an illustrative example of a container service inaccordance with at least one embodiment;

FIG. 6 shows an illustrative example of a process for parsing an indexfile to identify a server log that can be used to obtain event data thatcan be provided to a diagnostics datastore in accordance with at leastone embodiment;

FIG. 7 shows an illustrative example of a process for parsing processorstate logs to obtain processor state data for each identified event forthe virtual computing system servers in accordance with at least oneembodiment;

FIG. 8 shows an illustrative example of a process for aggregating datafor each identified event for each virtual computing system server inaccordance with at least one embodiment;

FIG. 9 shows an illustrative example of a process for generating one ormore files each having a filename based at least in part on the tasksthat are to be performed by the data log analysis computing systeminstances in accordance with at least one embodiment;

FIG. 10 shows an illustrative example of a process for evaluating afilename of a file obtained from a data store to determine the tasks tobe performed by the one or more processor state computing systeminstances in accordance with at least one embodiment; and

FIG. 11 illustrates an environment in which various embodiments can beimplemented.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

This disclosure relates to the use of various computing resources orcomputing system instances, such as containers, virtual machines, orother computing system instances, to evaluate and process incoming datalog files from virtual computing system servers, or resources hostingvirtual computing instances, to aggregate data for these virtual serversand to identify any events. In one example, each virtual computingsystem server generates a variety of data logs that may be stored in adata log datastore. Additionally, a virtual computing system server maygenerate an index file that can be used to identify the various datalogs generated by the virtual computing system server. This data logindex file may be stored within a log index datastore. In response toreceiving a new data log index file, the log index datastore may add amessage to a log index notification subject to which an index analysiscomputing system instance may be subscribed. If the index analysiscomputing system instance detects that a new message has been added tothe log index notification subject, the index analysis computing systeminstance may obtain the data log index file from the log index datastore. The index analysis computing system instance may parse theentries in the new data log index file to identify a virtual computingsystem server log that may be used to identify any events for theserver. If the index analysis computing system instance identifies anevent for the server, the index analysis computing system instance mayobtain data associated with the event and transmit this data to adiagnostics datastore where it may be sent to a data processingdatastore, such as a data warehouse for processing.

In some examples, the addition of the message to the log indexnotification subject causes the computing resource service provider,through a container service, to launch a data log analysis computingsystem instance. The data log analysis computing system instance may besubscribed to the log index notification subject to obtain the new datalog index file from the log index data store. The data log analysiscomputing system instance may evaluate the data log index file toidentify any processor state data logs for the virtual computing systemserver that may be associated with each event identified through theindex file. The data log computing system instance evaluates the logs toobtain processor state data for the virtual computing system server,which it may transmit to the diagnostics datastore for furtherprocessing and aggregation.

As the diagnostics datastore receives data associated with events andprocessor state data corresponding to these events, the diagnosticsdatastore provide the data to a data stream service, which may, in turn,transmit this data to a data processing datastore for aggregation. Thedata processing datastore, which may obtain data from the data streamservice, may aggregate the received data associated with an event andthe corresponding processor state data in order to generate a variety ofreports for the event. The data processing datastore may make thesereports available to customers of the virtual computer system service toenable these customers to access the reports corresponding to theirvirtual computing system servers. Additionally, the data processingdatastore may provide these reports to other services of the computingresource service provider to enable the services to address any issuesassociated with the virtual computing system servers.

In an example, the index analysis computing system instance obtains thevirtual computing system server data log from the data log datastore toidentify data corresponding to various events for the server. Based onthis data, the index analysis computing system instance may determinewhether there are any tasks that are to be performed by processor statecomputing system instances for obtaining data associated with theidentified events. If there are tasks that are to be performed, theindex analysis computing system instance may generate a file having afilename that has encoded the tasks that are to be performed. Forinstance, the filename of the file may correspond to particularprocessor state logs stored within the data log datastore that are to beprocessed by the data log analysis computing system instances. The textanalysis computing system instance may transmit this file to a delayeddiagnostics datastore.

The computing resource service provider may include a schedule computingsystem instance that may access the delayed diagnostics datastore toobtain any files provided by the index analysis computing systeminstances. The scheduler computing system instance evaluates thefilenames of the files from the delayed diagnostics datastore todetermine tasks to be performed by the processor state computing systeminstances. Based on these filenames, the scheduler computing systeminstance may generate task definitions for each processor statecomputing system instance and add these task definitions to a delayeddiagnostics notification subject. As the task definitions are added tothe delayed diagnostics notifications subject, the addition of the taskdefinitions may trigger the data log analysis computing system instancesto launch. These data log analysis computing system instances may accessthe delayed diagnostics notification subject and obtain the taskdefinitions provided by the scheduler computing system instance. Thedata log analysis computing system instances may use the taskdefinitions to access the data log datastore and perform the tasksspecified in the task definitions to obtain processor state data foreach event.

In this manner, the computing resource service provider may detect anyevents that are happening across the fleet of virtual computing systemservers and generate various reports corresponding to each detectedevent. In addition, the techniques described and suggested in thisdisclosure enable additional technical advantages. For instance, becausethe processing of data logs from the virtual computing system servers ishandled by various computing system instances rather than by the virtualcomputing system servers themselves, resource consumption or the virtualcomputing system servers is reduced. This may enable the virtualcomputing system servers to utilize their computing resources for othertasks as defined by customers of the virtual computer system service andby other services that may utilize these virtual computing systemservers.

In the preceding and following description, various techniques aredescribed. For purposes of explanation, specific configurations anddetails are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding ofpossible ways of implementing the techniques. However, it will also beapparent that the techniques described below may be practiced indifferent configurations without the specific details. Furthermore,well-known features may be omitted or simplified to avoid obscuring thetechniques being described.

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative example of an environment 100 in whichvarious embodiments can be implemented. In the environment 100, avirtual machine instance data log store 102 may obtain one or more datalogs 104 from various resources hosting virtual computing instances,such as virtual computing system servers of a virtual computer systemservice. For instance, each virtual computing system server of thevirtual computer system service may include an agent that records datacorresponding to operations performed by the virtual computing systemserver into one or more data logs 104. These data logs 104 may specify,among other things, processor state information for the virtualcomputing system server and other data that may correspond to one ormore events affecting the virtual computing system server. Events mayinclude any state transition for the virtual computing system server.For example, the agent of a virtual computing system server may specifyin a data log 104 that the particular virtual computing system serverhas crashed. Alternatively, the agent of the virtual computing systemserver may specify, in a data log, that a virtual machine instance hasbeen launched using the virtual computing system server. In someinstances, the agent may specify, in the data log, that a network devicehas been attached to a particular virtual machine instance of thevirtual computing system server. Other state transitions may include:virtual machine instance termination, networking customization for avirtual machine instance, rebooting of a virtual machine instance,cleanup of storage or attachments for the virtual computing systemserver, and the like. For each of these events, the virtual computingsystem server may generate one or more processor state logs used torecord processor state information for the processors of the virtualcomputing system server. In an embodiment, an administrator of a virtualcomputing system server can transmit a request, through applicationprogramming interface (API) calls, to a virtual computer system serviceto provide event data and processing data for the virtual computingsystem server. In response to the request, the virtual computer systemservice may cause the virtual computing system server to generate thedata logs 104.

In response to the creation of these new data logs 104, the virtualcomputing system server generates an index file for these data logs. Theindex file is a manifest of all data logs stored in the virtual machineinstance data log store 102 over a particular period of time or inresponse to a triggering event, such as a virtual machine instance crashor detection of a launch of a virtual machine instance. In anembodiment, each virtual computing system server or the virtual computersystem service transmits the index file for each virtual computingsystem server to a log index datastore. Further, the log index datastoremay publish a message to a log index notification subject to indicatethat a new log index is available within the log index datastore.

In an embodiment, for each new log index made available through the logindex data store, an index analysis computing system instance islaunched that may process the new log index for a virtual computingsystem server to identify the one or more events experienced by thevirtual computing system server. The index analysis computing systeminstance may be subscribed to the log index notification subject suchthat if a new message from the log index data store is added to thesubject, the index analysis computing system instance may receive anotification from the log index notification subject that a new messageis available. The index analysis computing system instance evaluates thenew message to identify the new data log index for the virtual computingsystem server. In response, the index analysis computing system instancemay access the log index data store to obtain the data log index for thevirtual computing system server. In some examples, a “containerinstance” may refer to a computer system instance, virtual ornon-virtual (e.g., a physical computer system running an operatingsystem), that is configured to launch and run software containers, wherea software container is an example of a computing system instance. Inaddition, the software containers may run executable code or functionsthat return a result to another service or component, and then terminateexecuting. In this way, the software containers may provide temporary orephemeral compute capabilities that exist only to execute the specifiedexecutable code or functions, and then are terminated. Thus, the indexanalysis computing system instance may include virtual machinesconfigured to launch and execute software containers for evaluating thedata log index file from the data log index datastore.

The index analysis computing system instance may parse the new data logindex file to identify a virtual computing system server log that mayinclude hardware information for the virtual computing system server aswell as data that may be used to identify one or more events affectingthe virtual computing system server. For instance, the index analysiscomputing system instance may parse the virtual computing system serverlog to identify any domain crash events or virtual machine instancelaunches. The timestamp and identifier of the affected virtual machineinstance may be important and combined with hardware information for thevirtual computing system server. This data may be transmitted from thevirtual computing system server to a diagnostics datastore, which may,in turn, provide this data to a data processing datastore 108 foraggregation. The data processing datastore 108 may analyze this data foreach virtual computing system server for each virtual machine instanceto prepare one or more reports 110 that may provide customers withinformation regarding events encountered by the virtual computing systemserver and any corresponding virtual machine instances.

In addition to the index analysis computing system instances, one ormore data log analysis computing system instances 106 may access the logindex notification subject to obtain the message published by the logindex datastore. In some embodiments, the addition of a message to thelog index notification subject that a new log index file has been addedto the log index datastore triggers a new data log analysis computingsystem instance 106 to launch. Each data log analysis computing systeminstance 106 may correspond to each virtual computing system server thathas generated a data log index file stored in the log index datastore. Adata log analysis computing system instance 106 may evaluate the datalog index file from the data log index data store to identify anyprocessor state data logs 104 for its corresponding virtual computingsystem server. Each data log analysis computing system instance 106 mayaccess the virtual machine instance data log datastore 102 to obtain theidentified processor state data logs 104 for each event identifiedthrough the index file.

A processor state data log 104 may include several individual entriesfor each unprivileged domain that may have no access to the hardware ofthe virtual computing system server. Additionally, the processor statedata log 104 may include several individual entries for each processorstate change. The data log analysis computing system instance 106 mayparse each processor state data log 104 corresponding to a virtualcomputing system server to obtain the processor state data, as well asdomain data for the virtual computing system server. It should be notedthat the virtual computing system server may support various virtualmachine instances on behalf of customers. The data log analysiscomputing system instance 106 may parse each processor states data log104 regardless of the virtual machine instance identifiers that may bespecified in the log 104. However, the data log analysis computingsystem instance 106 may include in the data information that may be usedto aggregate data according to each virtual machine instance identifier.

Each data log analysis computing system instance 106 may transmit thedata obtained from the various processor state data logs 104 to a dataprocessing datastore 108 for aggregation and analysis. The dataprocessing datastore 108 may use the data from the data log analysiscomputing system instances 106, along with the data obtained from theindex analysis computing system instances, to generate one or morereports 110. For instance, the data processing datastore 108 mayevaluate the data from the index analysis computing system instances andthe data log analysis computing system instances 106 to identify anypatterns that may yield information as to a particular virtual machineinstance or a virtual computing system server. For example, the dataprocessing datastore 108 may utilize data corresponding to a virtualmachine instance identifier and correlate this data with the operatingsystem, virtual machine image used to instantiate the virtual machineinstance, and the hardware information for the virtual computing systemservice to identify patterns that may be conducive to identifying theroot causes of the events affecting the virtual machine instance and/orthe virtual computing system server. The data processing datastore 108may be a data warehouse, which allows users of the data warehouse toquery for the data aggregated by the data warehouse for a virtualcomputing system server. Alternatively, the data processing datastore108 may be implemented by other data storage services, such as anon-demand, object-based data storage service that processes storagerequests synchronously, an archival data storage service that processesstorage request asynchronously, or another data storage service.Implementation of the data processing datastore 108 may be local (i.e,with one's own computing resources) or remote (e.g., using a storageservice of a computing resource service provider) or a combination oflocal and remote.

The data processing datastore 108 may make the reports 110 available tocustomers of the virtual computer system service, including thosecustomers that have provisioned virtual machine instances using themyriad virtual computing system servers provided by the virtual computersystem service. For instance, the data processing datastore 108 maytransmit a notification to each administrator of the virtual computingsystem servers for which data was analyzed by the data processingdatastore 108. This may enable an administrator to access the dataprocessing datastore 108 and obtain the one or more data reports 110 forits virtual computing system servers and virtual machines instances. Insome embodiments, the data processing datastore 108 may provide thereports 110 to one or more other services that may use the virtualcomputing system servers or virtual machine instances to enable theseother services to analyze the reports 110 and determine what operationsto be performed to address any issues corresponding to the virtualcomputing system servers or the virtual machine instances. For example,a computing resource service may evaluate the reports 110 to determinewhether to provision a difference virtual computing system server tosupport functionality of its computing resources.

As noted above, a variety of computing system instances may be launchedto evaluate one or more data logs from a virtual computing system serverto identify any events that may impact the functionality of the virtualcomputing system server or of any virtual machine instances that mayrely on the virtual computing system server. Accordingly, FIG. 2 showsan illustrative example of an environment 200 in which one or morecomputing system instances are used to obtain data from various datalogs 222 generated by one or more virtual computer system servers 204 inaccordance with at least one embodiment. In the environment 200, thevirtual computer system service 202 is a collection of computingresources configured to instantiate virtual machine instances ontovirtual computer systems on behalf of the customers of the computingresource service provider. Customers of the computing resource serviceprovider may interact with the virtual computer system service 202 toprovision and operate virtual computer systems that are instantiated onphysical computing devices (e.g., virtual computing system servers 204or other resources hosting virtual computing instances) hosted andoperated by the computing resource service provider. The virtualcomputer systems may be used for various purposes, such as to operate asservers supporting a web site. Other applications for the virtualcomputer systems may be to support database applications, electroniccommerce applications, business applications and/or other applications.

In an embodiment, each virtual computing system server 204 generates oneor more data logs 222 that may be used to track usage of the virtualcomputing system server 204 and any events that may be affecting thevirtual computing system server 204 or any virtual machine instancesthat utilize the resources of the virtual computing system server 204.For instance, a virtual computing system server 204 may generate a datalog if it detects that a virtual machine instance using the resources ofthe virtual computing system server 204 has crashed. Alternatively, thevirtual computing system server 204 generates a data log if it detectsthat a new virtual machine instance has launched using any availableresources of the virtual computing system server 204. In addition tothese data logs, a virtual computing system server 204 may track stateinformation over time for resources of the virtual computing systemserver 204 and any virtual machine instances operating on the server204.

As a virtual computing system server 204 generates these one or moredata logs 222, the virtual computing system server 204 may create a newdata log index 212 that may be used to identify the one or more datalogs created over a period of time or in response to a triggering event.The data log index 212 is a manifest of all data logs 222 generated bythe virtual computing system server 204 and any other files generated bythe virtual computing system server 204 that may have been transmittedto a virtual machine instance data log datastore 208. The virtualcomputing system server 204 may transmit the data log index 212 to adata log index datastore 206. While virtual computing system servers 204and the virtual computer system service 202 are utilized extensivelythroughout the present disclosure for the purpose of illustration, othercomputing resources and services may generate data logs 222 fordiagnostic and analytical purposes.

The virtual computer system service 202 may maintain a log indexnotification subject 210 which may be used by the data log indexdatastore 206 to provide an indication that a new data log index 212 hasbeen added to log index datastore 206 by a virtual computing systemserver 204. The log index notification subject 210 may be a subjectcreated using a notification service that may be used to publishmessages to subscribers of the subject. For instance, if an entity issubscribed to the subject, in response to a new message being added tothe subject, the message may be transmitted to each recipient subscribedto the subject. In an embodiment, one or more index analysis computingsystem instances 214 are subscribed to the log index notificationsubject 210 to obtain any messages added to the subject 210 that mayindicate the addition of a new data log index 212 to the log indexdatastore 206. An index analysis computing system instance 214 maycorrespond to a particular virtual computing system server 204. Thus, anindex analysis computing system instance 214 evaluates the message fromthe log index notification subject 210 to determine whether the messagecorresponds to its particular virtual computing system server 204. Insome instances, an index analysis computing system instance 214 mayprocess the incoming message on a first-come-first-serve basis.

In response to the message, an index analysis computing system instance214 may access the log index datastore 206 to download the data logindex 212 for a particular virtual computing system server 204. Theindex analysis computing system instance 214 may evaluate the data logindex 212 and parse any entries of the index to identify a virtualcomputing system server log for the virtual computing system server 204.If the index analysis computing system instance 214 identifies thevirtual computing system server log from the data log index 212, theindex analysis computing system instance 214 may access the virtualmachine instance data log datastore 208 to obtain the virtual computingsystem server log. The index analysis computing system instance 214 mayparse this log to identify any domain crash events, as well as any otherevents affecting the particular virtual computing system server 204 andany virtual machine instances operating on the server 204. The timestampof any identified events as well as an identifier for each affectedvirtual machine instances may be recorded and combined with hardwareinformation or the virtual computing system server 204 obtained from theindex 212. The index analysis computing system instance 214 may transmitthis data to a data stream service 218, which may provide the data tothe data processing datastore 224. The data may be collected in the formof a comma-separated value (CSV) file or other format that may be usedby the data processing datastore 224 to evaluate the file.

In addition to the index analysis computing system instance 214, thecomputing resource service provider may launch one or more data loganalysis computing system instances 220 that may be used to obtain oneor more data logs 222 from the virtual machine instance data logdatastore 208 to identify and collect any processor state data for thevirtual computing system servers 204 that may have been affected by oneor more events. For instance, if a new message is added to the log indexnotification subject 210 indicating that a new data log index 212 hasbeen added to the log index datastore 206, this may trigger a new datalog analysis computing system instance 220 to launch. This data loganalysis computing system instance 220 may subscribe to the log indexnotification subject 210 and obtain the data log index 212 from the logindex datastore 206 in response to the new message in the subject 210.

The data log analysis computing system instance 220 may parse this indexfile 212 to identify any processor state data logs that may be storedwithin the virtual machine instance data log datastore 208. Using thisinformation, the data log analysis computing system instance 220 mayaccess the virtual machine instance data log datastore 208 to obtain theprocessor state data logs. Each processor state data log may includevarious entries for each virtual machine instance operating within avirtual computing system server 204, as well as each processor statechange for the virtual computing system server 204. The data loganalysis computing system instance 220 may parse these data logs 222regardless of the different identifiers for the various virtual machineinstances operating within the particular virtual computing systemserver 204.

In an embodiment, the data log analysis computing system instance 220transmits data obtained from various processor state data logs to a datastream service 218, which may provide the data to the data processingdatastore 224 in real-time. Additionally, the data stream service 218may provide the data from the index analysis computing system instances214 to the data processing datastore 224. The data stream service 218may comprise various computer systems that may access various servicesprovided by the computing resource service provider, as well as, othercomputing resources to obtain data that may be streamed to a targetservice or resource. Additionally, the data stream service 218 mayreceive data from these computing resource services and other computingresources as the data is generated. While a data stream service 218 isused extensively throughout the present disclosure for the purpose ofillustration, other services may be used to obtain data from varioussources for the data processing datastore 224. For instance, one or morecomputer systems may be used to obtain data from a virtual machineinstance diagnostics datastore, which may store the data from the indexanalysis computing system instances 214, and the data log analysiscomputing system instances 220. These one or more computer systemsprovide the data to the data processing datastore 224 over a period oftime. For example, the one or more computer systems may provide the dataevery 24 hours or in response to a request from the data processingdatastore 224 to obtain the data.

The data processing datastore 224 may aggregate the obtained data foreach unique virtual machine instance identifier and for each virtualcomputing system server 204. Further, the data processing datastore 224may generate, for each virtual machine instance and each virtualcomputing system server 204, various reports that may be used todiagnose any identified event for the virtual machine instance or thevirtual computing system server 204. These reports include visualrepresentations of the obtained data to enable customers of the virtualcomputer system service 202 to evaluate the data and determine a courseof action to address any issues with the virtual machine instance forwhich the report was generated or with the virtual computing systemserver 204. Additionally, a customer may utilize these reports forstatistical purposes.

In an alternative embodiment, the index analysis computing systeminstance evaluates the data log index to identify any tasks that may beperformed by the data log analysis computing system instances in orderto obtain data relating to any identified events from the virtualmachine instance data log datastore. Based on the identified tasks, theindex analysis computing system instance may generate a null file with afilename that can be used by a scheduler computing system instance todetermine tasks to be performed. Accordingly, FIG. 3 shows anillustrative example of an environment 300 in which a schedulercomputing system instance 328 evaluates filenames from files obtainedfrom an index analysis computing system instance 314 to determine taskdefinitions for the data log analysis computing system instances 320 inaccordance with at least one embodiment. The environment 300 may includesimilar components to those described above in connection with FIG. 2.For instance, in the environment 300, each virtual computing systemserver 304 of the virtual computer system service 302, or other resourcehosting virtual computing instances, generates one or more data logs 322that may be used to track usage of the virtual computing system server304 and any events that may be affecting the virtual computing systemserver 304 or any virtual machine instances that utilize the resourcesof the virtual computing system server 304. The virtual computing systemserver 304 may also create a data log index 312. The virtual computingsystem server 304 may transmit the data log index 312 to a data logindex datastore 306. The virtual computer system service 302 maymaintain a log index notification subject 310 which may be used by thedata log index datastore 306 to provide an indication that a new datalog index 312 has been added to log index datastore 306 by a virtualcomputing system server 304.

The index analysis computing system instance 314 may obtain the data logindex 312 from the log index datastore 306 to evaluate the data logindex 312 and parse any entries of the index to identify a virtualcomputing system server log for the virtual computing system server 304.The index analysis computing system instance 314 may access the virtualmachine instance data log datastore 308 to obtain the virtual computingsystem server log for the virtual computing system server 304. The indexanalysis computing system instance 314 may parse the virtual computingsystem server log to identify any domain crash events, as well as anyother events affecting the particular virtual computing system server304 and any virtual machine instances operating on the server 304. Thetimestamp of any identified events as well as an identifier for eachaffected virtual machine instances may be recorded and combined withhardware information or the virtual computing system server 304 obtainedfrom the index 312. The index analysis computing system instance 314 maytransmit this data to the data stream service 318, which may transmitthe data to the data processing datastore 324. Alternatively, the indexanalysis computing system instance 314 may transmit the data to avirtual machine instance diagnostics datastore, which may collect thedata for delivery to the data processing datastore 324.

In an embodiment, based at least in part on the events identifiedthrough the virtual computing system server log, the index analysiscomputing system instance 314 determines what tasks remain to beperformed to obtain data associated with these events. For instance, theindex analysis computing system instance 314 may identify, based atleast in part on the data log index 312, whether there are any processorstate data logs associated with the identified events or the virtualcomputing system server 304 or any virtual machine instances thatutilize the virtual computing system server 304. The index analysiscomputing system instance 314 may evaluate a database of known tasks toidentify a code that may be used as a filename for a null file that maybe used to indicate the tasks to be performed by the data log analysiscomputing system instances 320. The database may include a lookup tablethat may include key-value pairs for filenames and tasks. Thus, based atleast in part on the tasks identified by the index analysis computingsystem instance 314, the index analysis computing system instance 314may generate a null file (e.g., empty file) that includes a filenamethat can be used to determine what tasks are to be performed. The indexanalysis computing system instance 314 may transmit this file to adelayed diagnostics datastore 326, which may include various fileshaving filenames that can be used to determine the tasks to beperformed. The delayed diagnostics datastore 326 may be a logicalpartition of a storage system that is used to define one or more tasksto be performed at a later time by the data log analysis computingsystem instances.

As a new file is added to the delayed diagnostics datastore 326, thescheduler computing system instance 328 may receive a notification fromthe delayed diagnostics datastore 326 indicating that a new file hasbeen added to the delayed diagnostics datastore 326. The schedulercomputing system instance 328 may access the delayed diagnosticsdatastore 326 to obtain the new file provided by the index analysiscomputing system instance 314. Further, the scheduler computing systeminstance 328 may evaluate the filename of the obtained file to determinethe tasks that need to be performed by the data log analysis computingsystem instances 320 to obtain additional data for a particular eventidentified by the index analysis computing system instance 314. Thescheduler computing system instance 328 may access the database of knowntasks and, using the filename of the obtained file, identify the tasksthat are to be performed. Using this information, the schedulercomputing system instance 328 may generate a task definition file forthe data log analysis computing system instances 320 and generate amessage indicating that a new task definition file has been generated.

The scheduler computing system instance 328 may publish the message to adelayed diagnostics notification subject 330, which may be a subjectcreated using a notification service that may be used to publishmessages to subscribers of the subject. If a new message is added to thedelayed diagnostics notification subject 330 indicating that a new taskdefinition file has been created by the scheduler computing systeminstance 328, this may trigger a new data log analysis computing systeminstance 320 to launch. This data log analysis computing system instance320 may subscribe to the delayed diagnostics notification subject 330and obtain the task definition file from the scheduler computing systeminstance 328 in response to the new message in the subject 330.

The data log analysis computing system instance 320 may evaluate thetask definition file from the scheduler computing system instance 328 toidentify which data logs 322 the data log analysis computing systeminstance 320 is to obtain from the virtual machine instance data logdatastore 308. The data log analysis computing system instance 320 mayaccess the virtual machine instance data log datastore 308 to obtain theidentified data logs 322. The data log analysis computing systeminstance 320 may parse these data logs 322 according to the taskdefinition file and transmit the data obtained from these data logs 322to the data stream service 318, which may provide the data to the dataprocessing datastore 324 in real-time. Additionally, the data streamservice 318 may obtain the data from the index analysis computing systeminstance 314 to provide this data to the data processing datastore 324.The data processing datastore 324 may aggregate the obtained data foreach unique virtual machine instance identifier and for each virtualcomputing system server 304 to generate various reports that may be usedto diagnose any identified event for the virtual machine instance or thevirtual computing system server 304.

As noted above, an index analysis computing system instance may evaluatea data log index from a log index datastore of a virtual computer systemservice to identify any events encountered by a virtual computing systemserver and any virtual machine instances operating using the resourcesof the virtual computing system server. Based at least in part on theinformation specified in the data log index, the index analysiscomputing system instance may identify what tasks need to be performedto obtain data corresponding to these events. The index analysiscomputing system instance may use these tasks to generate a filenamethat has encoded within it the tasks that can be performed by a data loganalysis computing system instance to obtain the necessary data.Accordingly, FIG. 4 shows an illustrative example of an environment 400in which a scheduler computing system instance 412 evaluates a filename408 to determine the operations to be performed in obtaining data fromone or more data logs in accordance with at least one embodiment.

In the environment 400, the index analysis computing system instances402 may each analyze their respective data log index files from the logindex datastore to identify any virtual computing system server logs fortheir respective virtual computing system servers and virtual machineinstances. Each index analysis computing system instance 402 mayevaluate a virtual computing system server log to identify any eventsencountered by the corresponding virtual computing system server and/orthe virtual machine instances instantiated on to the virtual computingsystem server. Based at least in part on the events identified, theindex analysis computing system instance 402 may identify any tasks thatneed to be performed to obtain additional data for these events. Forinstance, through the data log index file and the virtual computingsystem server log, the index analysis computing system instance 402 mayidentify the one or more data logs stored within the virtual machineinstance data log datastore that are to be analyzed, as well as thetypes of data that are to be obtained from these data logs.

The index analysis computing system instance 402 may access a databaseof tasks to generate a filename 408 for a null file 406 that may be usedto indicate the tasks that are to be performed by a data log analysiscomputing system instance to obtain the data for the identified events.The database of tasks may be a key-value store that specifies, for eachcharacter of a filename 408, a task to be performed. Alternatively, theindex analysis computing system instance 402 may generate a distinctfilename 408 and specify, within the database, the tasks to beperformed. The index analysis computing system instance 402 may createan association between the filename 408 and the tasks to be performedwithin the database. In some embodiments, the scheduler computing systeminstance 412 may include a key-value store for filenames 408 andcorresponding tasks to be performed, obviating the need for acentralized database of key-value pairs.

The filename 408 may be encoded to identify the tasks to be performed bya data log analysis computing system instance, as well as otherinformation that may be used to associated the data to the correspondingvirtual computing system server. For instance, the filename 408 mayencode an identifier for a virtual machine instance operating throughthe virtual computing system server, the date/time of the events thatthe processor state data log corresponds to, a hash code identifier forthe virtual computing system server, the date/time at which the task maybe performed, and an identifier for the virtual computing system server.As will be described in greater detail below, the instructions agent 414of the scheduler computing system instance 412 may parse the filename408 to obtain the encoded information and to use this information toprepare the task definitions file 410.

The index analysis computing system instance 402 may generate a nullfile 406 (e.g., file having no contents) that has a filename 408 inwhich are encoded the tasks to be performed by a data log analysiscomputing system instance. The index analysis computing system instance402 may store this null file 406 within a delayed diagnostics datastore404. In response to receiving the new null file 406, the delayeddiagnostics datastore 404 may update an index of the delayed diagnosticsdatastore 404 to indicate that the null file 406 has been added to thedelayed diagnostics datastore 404. The index may specify the filenamesfor each file stored within the delayed diagnostics datastore 404, aswell as a timestamp indicating when a file was added to the delayeddiagnostics datastore 404. In an embodiment, the delayed diagnosticsdatastore 404 may transmit a notification to the scheduler computingsystem instance 412 to indicate that the index has been updated tospecify presence of a new null file 406 in the delayed diagnosticsdatastore 404. In response to the notification, an instructions agent414 of the scheduler computing system instance may obtain the index fromthe delayed diagnostics datastore 404 to obtain the filename 408 of thenewly added null file 406. The instructions agent 414 may be a softwareapplication launched automatically when the scheduler computing systeminstance 412 is instantiated.

The instructions agent 414 may evaluate the filename 408 of the nullfile 406 specified in the index to identify the one or more tasks thatneed to be performed by a data log analysis computing system instance toobtain data associated with one or more identified events. For instance,the instructions agent 414 may access the database of tasks and utilizethe filename 408 to identify the one or more tasks to be performed.Alternatively, the instructions agent 414 may be programmed to decodethe filename 408 to identify the tasks and an ordering in which thetasks are to be performed. Using the tasks identified through thedatabase or through use of its programming, the instructions agent 414may generate a new task definitions file 410 that may specify the one ormore tasks to be performed. Additionally, the task definitions file 410may specify an ordering in which the one or more tasks are to beperformed.

The instructions agent 414 may transmit the task definitions file 410 tothe delayed diagnostics notification subject 416. Alternatively, theinstructions agent 414 may generate a message that specifies that thenew task definitions file 410 is available through the schedulercomputing system instance 412. The addition of the task definitions file410 or the message to the delayed diagnostics notification subject 416may trigger a data log analysis computing system instance to belaunched. This data log analysis computing system instance may besubscribed to the delayed diagnostics notification subject 416. Thus,the data log analysis computing system instance may receive anotification from the delayed diagnostics notification subject 416indicating that the new task definitions file 410 has been added to thesubject 416 or that the new task definitions file 410 is availablethrough the scheduler computing system instance 412. Under eithercircumstance, the data log analysis computing system instance may obtainthe task definitions file 410 and determine the tasks to be performed.

While filenames are used extensively throughout the present disclosurefor the purpose of illustration, other data may be included in the file406 to encode to one or more tasks that can be used to generate the taskdefinitions file 410. For instance, the file 406 may include metadatathat describes the file 406 and also encodes the one or more tasks andother information that can be used to generate the task definitions file410. The instructions agent 408 may evaluate the metadata of the file406 to identify the one or more tasks to be performed and to generatethe task definitions file 410.

As noted above, container instances may refer to computer systeminstances, virtual or non-virtual (e.g., a physical computer systemrunning an operating system), that are configured to launch and runsoftware containers, where containers are examples of computing systeminstances that can perform operations such as described above and alsobelow. In addition, the software containers may run executable code orfunctions that return a result to another service or component, and thenterminate executing. Accordingly, FIG. 5 shows an illustrative exampleof a container service 500 in accordance with at least one embodiment.As illustrated in FIG. 5, the environment of the example containerservice 500 may include a virtual computer system service 502communicating through a front-end service 504 to manage one or morecontainers within one or more container instances 518. In some examples,a “container instance” may refer to a computer system instance, virtualor non-virtual (e.g., a physical computer system running an operatingsystem), that is configured to launch and run software containers(referred to in short as “containers.” Thus, the one or more containerinstances 518 may be virtual machines configured to launch and executesoftware containers.

A container encapsulation system provided by or interfaced to thecontainer service 500 may allow a user (e.g., user of a controllingdevice) to configure one or more applications within a container of anoperating system which supports containers. The running processes andresources within the container may be isolated from other processes ofthe parent container instance and from the running processes andresources within other containers of the same host system. The user mayspecify the amount of memory and processing capacity allocated to thecontainer. The base container and the applications and data within itmay then be packaged as an image, including one or more programs, data,and any system dependencies (e.g., libraries, files, etc.) that areneeded for the programs to run on the operating system of the containerinstance. In some examples, an “image” may refer to an entire copy of aparticular state of the base container at the time the image wasgenerated. The image thereafter may be used to launch one or moreidentical containers, each of which may be assigned the specified amountof resources and may be isolated from each other. The containers may belaunched on the same or different physical machines and each containermay be expected to run in exactly the same way as the base container.

Each of the container instances 518 may be configured to contain one ormore agents, such as the agent 522. The container service 500 may becomprised of a set of services, including a template service 506, one ormore schedulers 508, a router service 510, and a telemetry service 512.Because the container service 500 may be configured as a multitenantservice (i.e., the resources of the container service 500 may servemultiple customers concurrently), and because the services provided bythe container service 500 exist outside and separate from the containerinstances 518, the virtual computer system service 502 need not installindividual software applications within its respective containerinstances 518 to provide the functionality afforded by the services. Thevirtual computer system service 502 may utilize the functionalityprovided by these services by making web service application programminginterface function calls through the front-end service 504, which may beconfigured to receive requests from the virtual computer system service502 and forward the requests to the appropriate service, such as theappropriate container manager backend service 514.

The scheduler 508 may be configured to launch tasks within the describedcluster. Alternatively, the virtual computer system service 502 mayimplement its own scheduler, rather than the scheduler 508. The virtualcomputer system service 502 may design and/or upload a placementalgorithm to be used by its own scheduler, or may select from a list ofpossible placement algorithms provided to the virtual computer systemservice 502 by the computing resource service provider. The containerservice 500 may determine, based on available resources, whether toaccept or reject placement decisions made by the virtual computer systemservice 502 scheduler.

The scheduler 508 may be a multitenant service configured to optimallyschedule a set of tasks to run with a cluster. In this way, virtualcomputer system service 502 need not choose where the tasks should beexecuted. The placement scheme of the scheduler 508 may be configured todistribute tasks evenly over the cluster (e.g., round robin fashion,stochastic distribution scheme, etc.), and may be configured todistribute tasks based on a current or projected resource consumption bythe cluster, in order to make the most efficient use of availableresources. The scheduler 508 may obtain cluster manager metadata andother information about the availability of the container instances 518in a cluster via the container manager backend services 514. The clustermanager metadata and other information may include data about thecurrent state of the container instances 518 assigned to the cluster,available resources within the container instances, containers runningwithin the container instances, and other information usable by thescheduler 508 to make placement decisions.

The scheduler 508 may distribute tasks based on security rules, securitygroups, and/or security roles, have affinity, and anti-affinity. Forexample, tasks within a certain security group may be configured to belaunched on the same container instance whenever possible orpracticable, or, conversely, may be scheduled to be launched in separatecontainer instances. As another example, tasks may be assigned tocertain security groups or designated to have certain security roles,and, based on the particular security group assigned or security roledesignated, a task may be assigned to run in a specific cluster orspecific cluster instances or may have priority for resources over othertasks. Task distribution based on affinity/anti-affinity includeassigning “tags” indicating relationships between containers, containerinstances, and tasks. As an example of distribution based on affinity,two container instances may be tagged as “general” and one containerinstance may be tagged as “database.” In a task definition, a task couldbe specified with a “general” launch constraint providing affinity thatthe task is to be launched into one (or more) of the container instancestagged as general. As an example of task distribution of anti-affinity,certain container instances may be tagged as“secure-credit-card-processing” and certain other container instancesmay be tagged as “http-website.” Because http-website containers may beserving traffic from untrusted outside entities, it may be desirable notto share such containers with credit card processing tasks. Thus, a taskdefinition can be configured to indicate that “http-website” isanti-affinity to credit card processing tasks to ensure that credit cardprocessing containers are not launched in “http-website” taggedcontainer instances. In this example, the scheduler 508 can beconfigured to parse any tags in a task definition and use it to filterout container instances that do not meet the criteria associated withthe tag. Next, the scheduler 508 can select a container instance fromthe filtered set to host the container.

Containers may also be configured to utilize other resources provided bythe computing resource service provider. For example, each container maybe configured with a virtual network interface to allow the container tocommunicate through the virtual network to other containers and/or otherresources of the computing resource service provider. Likewise, securitycredentials may be assigned on a per-container basis so that containershave their own security credentials to access the other resourcesprovided by the computing resource service provider. Additionally, thecontainer service may be configured to integrate with a load-balancingservice to load-balance workloads directed at the containers. Forexample, a virtual computer system service 502 may present a list ofcommunications protocol addresses associated with virtual networks ofthe virtual computer system service 502 containers and/or virtualcomputer system service 502 instances to a load-balancer of theload-balancing service and instruct the load-balancer to balanceworkloads between the communications protocol addresses. In addition,the container service may be integrated with an auto-scaling service toallow resources utilized by the containers to be dynamically adjusted asneeded.

In some cases, the scheduler 508 may be configured to maximize availableresources. For example, a cluster may be utilized primarily for runninglong-running services, and a need arises for running one or moreshort-lived batch jobs. In such an example, a scheduler configured tomaximize available resources may look for an instance with just enoughprocessing power to support the batch jobs as a best-fit location forthe batch jobs. Alternatively, the scheduler 408 may look for aninstance utilizing the least of its processing power and schedule thebatch jobs with this instance.

In some implementations, a meta-scheduler is configured to runhierarchically on top of one or more schedulers, and the meta-schedulermay decide where to launch the batch jobs. For example, in animplementation there are two types of tasks: short term batch job tasksand long-term services. The two types of tasks may have differentplacement rules, such as it may be desirable to distribute the servicetasks evenly among the available container instances in one or morespecified clusters, whereas the batch job tasks may be configured to runin any available container instance with space processing cycles. Insome cases, a different scheduler may be assigned to each set ofplacement rules. However, in cases where such placement rules arecompeting or in conflict with each other or in cases where anappropriate scheduler must be determined and assigned to a particulartask, the meta-scheduler may determine which competing task shouldprevail, synchronize information between schedulers, or determine theappropriate scheduler for placing a task.

Because containers may be run in any available container instance withsufficient resources in the cluster, containers may be scaled up or downwithin the cluster as needed, provided enough container instances areavailable. If the number of container instances in a cluster isinsufficient, additional container instances may be created andregistered to the cluster through the cluster manager. If anoverabundance of container instances exist in the cluster, somecontainer instances may be deregistered from the cluster via the clustermanager. The scheduler 508 may also be configured to start tasks withina task definition file, and determine where to place the tasks withinthe cluster. For example, the scheduler 508 may determine to distributetasks evenly between the container instances of the cluster, distributetasks in some chi-squared distribution, or may distribute tasks amongcontainer instances of a cluster according to some other heuristic orset of constraints.

The template service 506 may be configured to allow the virtual computersystem service 502 to define a task definition for its containers. Insome examples, a “task definition” may refer to a script or set ofmetadata that may define a group of containers; e.g., the number ofcontainers, their types, their components, their relationships to othercontainers, information describing associated instances, and othermetadata. Task definitions may also specify that groups of containersare to be launched in coordination. The template service 506 may receivetask definitions from the virtual computer system service 502, store thetask definitions in the database 516, and allow the network-connecteddevice service 502 to create, view, update, delete, and otherwise managetheir task definitions.

The template service 506 may grant the virtual computer system service502 the ability to define a task definition. The template service 506may allow the virtual computer system service 502 with the ability toprovide the task definition by uploading a task definition file or mayprovide the task definition by allowing the virtual computer systemservice 502 to select from various options and/or change defaultsettings to dynamically create a task definition file. The templateservice 506 may allow the virtual computer system service 502 toregister a task definition. The template service 506 may also provide anediting interface for editing currently registered task definitions. Thetemplate service 506 may register the task definitions at least in part,by providing the task definitions to the container manager backedservice 514 to be stored in in the database 516.

In some examples, a “fleet” may refer to a set of computer systems(virtual or physical) running instances, such as the container instances518 of the present disclosure. A fleet may be subdivided intosub-fleets, and each sub-fleet may be supported by a correspondingcontainer manager back-end service and agent communication servicededicated to that sub-fleet. The agent communication services 520 may beconfigured to communicate with the agents 522 running on containerinstances within the sub-fleet.

The container manager backend services 514 may be configured to provideother management services and resources to the sub-fleet on the backend,such as the cluster management software or cluster manager metadatadescribed in the present disclosure. The container manager backendservices may be configured to receive task definitions from the templateservice 506, store the task definitions in the database 516, receivecluster manager metadata from container instances 518 or the agentcommunication services 520, and provide task definition information andthe cluster manager metadata to the scheduler 508 or a network-virtualcomputer system service 502 installed scheduler upon request. Thecontainer manager backend services may be configured to provideinformation about a specified cluster, such as cluster manager metadata.

The agent communication services 520 and container manager backendservices 514 may be implemented on separate computer systems within thesub-fleet, separate virtual machine instances within the sub-fleet, mayshare the same computer systems and/or virtual machine instances withinthe sub-fleet, or may run on computer systems separate from but incommunication with their respective sub-fleet. There may be multiplecontainer instances 518 per sub-fleet. In some cases, each sub-fleet mayrepresent a single cluster. In other cases, clusters may span multiplesub-fleets. In still other cases, each sub-fleet may host more than onecluster. The router service 510 may be configured to route requests fromthe front-end service 504 to the appropriate sub-fleet. In someembodiments, the router service 510 route requests to a singlesub-fleet. In other embodiments, the router service routes requestsbetween multiple sub-fleets.

The telemetry service 512 may be configured to aggregate control groupmetrics (e.g., information about the processes running within thecontainers) and container logs and provide the aggregated metrics andlogs to a resource monitoring service to allow the virtual computersystem service 502 to monitor resource utilization, such as processor,storage, and network usage, of their respective container instances.Control group metrics include information such as the amount of memoryused by processes of the containers, number of times that a processtriggered a page fault, central processing unit usage by the processesof the containers, time during which the central processing units wereexecuting system calls on behalf of processes of the containers, numberof reads and writes by the processes of the containers, and number ofinput/output operations queued for the processes of the containers. Insome implementations, the telemetry service 512 may obtain its datadirectly from one or more agents, such as the agent 522. In otherimplementations, the telemetry service 512 may obtain its dataindirectly from one or more agents, such as through the front-endservice 504 or through a connection (not shown) to the database 516.

The container manager backend services 514 may be configured to receiveplacement requests from the virtual computer system service 502 for itscontainers through the front-end service 504, and may ensure that therequested resources are available for the containers. The containermanager backend services 514 may then write the desired container stateto the database 516. In some implementations, the container managerbackend services is responsible for the cluster manager metadata, whichmay be stored in the database 516, and provided to the scheduler 508 orcustomer-installed scheduler when requested.

The database 516 may be a data store located within the distributedcomputing system of the container service 500, or may be a data store ofa different service of a computing resource service provider, such as arelational database service. In some embodiments, the database 516 is aset of distributed databases that share a transaction log. The agentcommunication services 520 may be configured to store the status of theagents 522 and/or other information provided by the agents 522 to theagent communication service 520 in the database 516. In someembodiments, communication by other components of the container service,with containers and the container instances 518 is performed through theagent communication services 520. Each fleet may have at least one agentcommunication service which relays the messages between the agents 522of the fleet.

The agents 522 may be software applications configured to run ininstances owned by the virtual computer system service 502 and may trackcommunications (e.g., packets, requests, messages, etc.) betweenapplications running in software containers of the container instances518. The agents 522 themselves may be running within softwarecontainers. The agents 522 may be configured to launch automaticallywhen their respective container instances 518 are instantiated. In anembodiment, an agent 522 operating within a container instance 518access data log files from various datastores of the virtual computersystem service 502 to identify events encountered by various virtualcomputing system services and virtual machine instances, as well asother data associated with these events.

The container service 500 may be integrated with other services of acomputing resource service provider, such as the virtual computer systemservice 502. For example, the container instances may be tagged and/orassigned to an auto-scaling group of an auto-scaling service of thecomputing resource service provider. In this manner, the auto-scalingservice may monitor resource usage by the container instances and maydynamically adjust/allocate resources as needed, such as a suddenincrease in resource demand by the container instances. Likewise, thecontainer service 500 may integrate with a load-balancer service of thecomputing resource service provider. For example, the load-balancerservice may distribute traffic to the containers or container instancesin order to balance the workload among the container instances.

As noted above, an index analysis computing system instance may besubscribed to the log index notification subject to determine whether anew data log index has been added to a log index datastore for aparticular virtual computing system server. The index analysis computingsystem instance may obtain this data log index from the log indexdatastore to identify any events affecting the virtual computing systemserver and to provide event data for each event to the data streamservice for delivery to the data processing datastore. Accordingly, FIG.6 shows an illustrative example of a process 600 for parsing an indexfile to identify a server log that can be used to obtain event data thatcan be provided to a diagnostics datastore in accordance with at leastone embodiment. The process 600 may be performed by an index analysiscomputing system instance, which may utilize notifications from a logindex notification subject to identify if a new data log index isavailable for a particular virtual computing resource server. In someinstances, the virtual computer system service may maintain a fleet ofindex analysis computing system instances, each of which may be assignedto an individual virtual computing system server. Alternatively, thevirtual computer system service may configure the index analysiscomputing system instances to process incoming messages from the logindex notification subject on a first-come-first-serve basis.

In an embodiment, the index analysis computing system instance issubscribed to a log index notification subject to receive 602notifications from the log index notification subject indicating that anew index file has been added to the log index datastore of the virtualcomputer system service. For instance, the log index datastore of thevirtual computer system service may publish a notification to the logindex notification subject to indicate that a new data log index filehas been added to the log index datastore. The index analysis computingsystem instance may obtain the notification from the log indexnotification subject and identify the new index file added to the logindex datastore. The index analysis computing system instance mayutilize this information to access the log index datastore to obtain 604the new index file.

The index analysis computing system instance may parse 606 the entriesof the new index file to identify a virtual computing system server logthat may be stored within a virtual machine instance data log datastore.The new index file may specify hardware information for the particularvirtual computing system server and the hardware used to instantiate thevirtual machine instances on to the virtual computing system server. Thevirtual computing system server log may specify event data for the oneor more events encountered by the virtual computing system server andits corresponding virtual machine instances. In some instances, noevents may be detected and, as a result, no virtual computing systemserver log may be indicated in the index file. Thus, using the indexfile, the index analysis computing system instance may determine 608whether a virtual computing system server log is specified in the indexfile and is thus available for analysis. If the index analysis computingsystem instance is unable to identify a virtual computing system serverlog from the new index file, the index analysis computing systeminstance may await the next notification indicating presence of a newindex file for the virtual computing system server.

If the index analysis computing system instance identifies, through theindex file, a virtual computing system server log that is stored withinthe virtual machine instance data log datastore, the index analysiscomputing system instance may access the datastore to obtain 610 thevirtual computing system server log. The index analysis computing systeminstance may parse the log to identify 612 any events that may have beenencountered by the virtual computing system server and/or any of thevirtual machine instances that utilize the virtual computing systemserver. If the index analysis computing system instance identifies anyevents, the index analysis computing system instance may obtain datacorresponding to each of these events, including the timestamp at whichthe event occurred and an identifier for each virtual machine instancethat encountered the event.

The index analysis computing system instance may combine the datacorresponding to each of these events with the hardware informationspecified in the index file into a format, such as a CSV format, thatmay be evaluated by a data processing datastore to generate one or morereports for customers of the virtual computer system service. The indexanalysis computing system instance may transmit 614 the combined data,including the event data for each event, to the data stream service.This may cause the data stream service to provide the data to the dataprocessing datastore to enable the data processing datastore to utilizethe event data, along with processor state data for the virtualcomputing system server, to generate one or more reports for customersof the virtual computer system service.

As noted above, one or more data log analysis computing system instancesmay also be subscribed to the log index notification subject todetermine if a new data log index has been added to the log indexdatastore. If a data log analysis computing system instance receives anew notification indicating that a data log index file has been added tothe log index datastore, the data log analysis computing system instancemay identify the one or more processor state data logs stored within thevirtual machine instance data log datastore that correspond to theobtained data log index file. The data log analysis computing systeminstance may process these one or more processor state data logs andprovide the data from these logs to a data stream service fordistribution to the data processing datastore 224 for aggregation andgeneration of reports. Accordingly, FIG. 7 shows an illustrative exampleof a process 700 for parsing processor state logs to obtain processorstate data for each identified event for the virtual computing systemservers in accordance with at least one embodiment. The process 700 maybe performed by a data log analysis computing system instance, which mayaccess a virtual machine instance data log datastore of the virtualcomputer system service to obtain the processor state data logs forprocessing.

In an embodiment, in response to a new notification being added to thelog index notification subject indicating presence of a new data logindex file in the log index datastore, the virtual computer systemservice launches a new data log analysis computing system instance thatmay be used to process the data log index file. The new data loganalysis computing system instance may subscribe to the log indexnotification subject to receive 702 the notification, from the log indexnotification subject, indicating that a new index file has been added tothe log index datastore. In response to the notification, the data loganalysis computing system instance may access the log index datastore ofthe virtual computer system service to obtain the new data log indexfile for a virtual computing system server.

The data log analysis computing system instance may parse the index filefrom the log index datastore to identify 704 one or more processor statedata logs that may be stored within the virtual machine instance datalog datastore. The data log analysis computing system instance mayaccess the virtual machine instance data log datastore to obtain 706 theone or more identified processor state data logs specified in the datalog index file. The data log analysis computing system instance anddecompress each of the obtained processor state data logs and parse 708through these processor state data logs to obtain processor state datafor each identified event specified in the index file. Each processorstate data file may comprise several individual entries for each domainoperating on the virtual computing system server and for each processorstate change. The data log analysis computing system instance may parseseach of these entries to obtain processor state data for each eventidentified through the index file.

The data log analysis computing system instance may generate, using thedata garnered from the processor state data logs, a file that includesthe data in a format, such as a CSV format, that may be used by the dataprocessing datastore. The data log analysis computing system instancemay transmit 710 this data to the data stream service, which may providethe data to the data processing datastore. This may cause the dataprocessing datastore to utilize this data to generate one or morereports that may be of use to customers of the virtual computer systemservice to evaluate each event and address any issues related to theseevents.

As noted above, the computing resource service provider may include adata processing datastore, which may obtain the event data and processorstate data for each identified event from a data stream service. Throughthe data stream service, the data processing datastore may obtain thedata in real-time. Alternatively, a virtual machine instance diagnosticsdatastore may transmit the data to the data stream service, which mayprovide the data to the data processing datastore periodically or inresponse to a triggering event, such as obtaining all data correspondingto events specified in a particular index file. The data processingdatastore may utilize the data from the data stream service to generateone or more reports that may enable customers of the virtual computersystem service to evaluate the events and identify any issues associatedwith these events. Accordingly, FIG. 8 shows an illustrative example ofa process 800 for aggregating data for each identified event for eachvirtual computing system server in accordance with at least oneembodiment. The process 800 may be performed by the aforementioned dataprocessing datastore.

As the data stream service receives data from the index analysiscomputing system instances and the data log analysis computing systeminstances, the data stream service may provide the data in real-time tothe data processing datastore for aggregation and processing. The dataprocessing datastore may obtain 802 the event data and processor statedata for various events through the data stream service and aggregate804 the data according to each event identified, to each individualvirtual computing system server, and to each virtual machine instanceinstantiated using the virtual computing system servers. For instance,the obtained data may specify hardware information for each virtualcomputing system server, as well as unique timestamps corresponding toeach event identified through the data log index file. Further, the datamay include a virtual machine instance identifier for each entry. Thus,the data processing datastore may utilize this additional informationspecified in the obtained data to aggregate the data according to theevent, virtual computing system server, and virtual machine instance.

The data processing datastore may use the aggregated data to generate806 one or more reports for each identified virtual computing systemserver of the virtual computer system service. These one or more reportsmay include pictographic representations of the data, such as bargraphs, pie graphs, histograms, and the like that may be viewed bycustomers of the virtual computer system service for analytical andstatistical purposes. Additionally, or alternatively, these one or morereports may be generated in a format that may be used by other computingresource services. For instance, if a virtual computing system server isutilized by another computing resource service, the data processingdatastore may generate one or more reports in a format that the othercomputing resource service uses. Thus, the computing resource servicemay decode the reports and utilize the reports for its purposes.

In some embodiments, the data processing datastore will access thevirtual computer system service to identify administrators and othermanagers of the various virtual computing system servers maintained bythe virtual computer system service. Additionally, the data processingdatastore may identify the administrators or other managers of eachvirtual machine instance instantiated on to the virtual computing systemservers. The data processing datastore may utilize this information totransmit 808 a notification to an administrator or manager of eachidentified virtual computing system server and virtual machine instanceto indicate that one or more reports are available for theirconsumption. This enables these administrators and managers of thevirtual computing system servers and the virtual machine instances toaccess the data processing datastore via an interface to access the oneor more reports. This may allow the administrators and managers of theservers and virtual machine instances to evaluate each report, identifyany issues associated with the events recorded, and perform anyoperations necessary to address these issues.

As noted above, the index analysis computing system instances maydetermine one or more tasks that may be performed by the data loganalysis computing system instances by evaluating the log index filefrom the log index datastore. These tasks may correspond to the eventsidentified through the index file and may cause the data log analysiscomputing system instances to obtain the processor state data logs fromthe virtual machine instance data log datastore to obtain data necessaryto complete the assigned tasks. To provide these tasks to the data loganalysis computing system instances, the index analysis computing systeminstances may generate a null file that has a filename, within which isencoded the one or more tasks that are to be performed. Accordingly,FIG. 9 shows an illustrative example of a process 900 for generating oneor more files each having a filename based at least in part on the tasksthat are to be performed by the data log analysis computing systeminstances in accordance with at least one embodiment. The process 900may be performed by any index analysis computing system instance, whichmay utilize the log index file from the log index datastore to identifyone or more events and tasks that are to be performed in response toeach identified event.

As with the process 600 described above in connection with FIG. 6, anindex analysis computing system instance may parse the entries of anindex file to identify a virtual computing system server log that may bestored within a virtual machine instance data log datastore. The indexanalysis computing system instance may access the datastore to obtain902 the virtual computing system server log. The index analysiscomputing system instance may parse the log to identify 904 any eventsthat may have been encountered by the virtual computing system serverand/or any of the virtual machine instances that utilize the virtualcomputing system server. If the index analysis computing system instanceidentifies any events, the index analysis computing system instance mayobtain data corresponding to each of these events, including thetimestamp at which the event occurred and an identifier for each virtualmachine instance that encountered the event.

The index analysis computing system instance may evaluate the datagarnered from the index file and the virtual computing system server logto determine 906 what tasks are to be performed by one or more data loganalysis computing system instances. For example, the index analysiscomputing system instance may utilize the obtained data to determine atime at which processor state data for the target virtual computingsystem server or virtual machine instances may become available forprocessing. The index analysis computing system instance may also usethe obtained data to determine one or more conditions for which thetasks are to be performed. For example, the one or more conditions mayinclude a determination as to whether the tasks have been previouslyperformed, whether there are other sources of data that may be used tocompile the processor state data, the time at which the processor statedata is available (as described above), and the like. Additionally, theindex analysis computing system instance may identify additionalinformation that may be needed to identify the correct data logs fromthe virtual machine instance data log datastore that can be used toobtain data for a particular event. The additional information mayfurther include information concerning the event to enable the data loganalysis computing system instance to associate the data garnered fromthe virtual computing system server log with the data obtained from theother data logs.

The index analysis computing system instance may evaluate the server logto determine whether the processor state data logs 908 that are requiredto perform the one or more tasks are available. For instance, theprocessor state data logs may not be available until a certain amount oftime after creation of the server log. Thus, the index analysiscomputing system instance may calculate the expected time at which theprocessor state data logs will be available for use. Alternatively, thedata log index may specify when the processor state data logs will beavailable. The index analysis computing system instance may compare thepresent time to the time specified in the data log index or calculatedby the index analysis computing system instance to determine if theprocessor state data logs are available. If the processor state datalogs are not available, the index analysis computing system instance maywait 910 for the processor state data logs to become available beforeproceeding.

However, if the processor state data logs are available, the indexanalysis computing system instance may generate 912 or more files havingfile names based at least in part on the determined tasks. For instance,based at least in part on the information from the virtual computingsystem server log and the index file, as well as the tasks identified,the index analysis computing system instance may generate one or morenull files that have filenames based at least in part on the determinedtasks. The index analysis computing system instance may access a taskdatabase that includes a key-value store for codes corresponding todifferent tasks that may be performed. Further, the index analysiscomputing system instance may utilize one or more established standardsto determine additional components of the filename that may be used toidentify the parameters of the tasks to be performed. For instance, theindex analysis computing system instance may utilize a two-digitnumerical set of characters to specify a time at which the processorstate data logs may be available for consumption. Further, a portion ofthe filename may be a hash of the identifier for the virtual computingsystem server or virtual machine instance for which the data is to beobtained. The index analysis computing system instance may utilize thesecomponents of the filename to generate the filename for the null filethat may be used to identify the tasks to be performed. The indexanalysis computing system instance may transmit 914 this null file to adelayed diagnostics datastore, which may provide the null file to ascheduler computing system instance, which may decode the filename ofnull file to identify the tasks to be performed.

As noted above, the virtual computer system service or the computingresource service provider itself may provision a scheduler computingsystem instance that may process incoming null files from the delayeddiagnostics datastore to determine tasks to be performed by the data loganalysis computing system instances. The scheduler computing systeminstance may evaluate the filename of an incoming null file to identifythe tasks that are to be performed. Based at least in part on theseidentified tasks, the scheduler computing system instance may generatetask definitions files for the data log analysis computing systeminstances. Accordingly, FIG. 10 shows an illustrative example of aprocess 1000 for evaluating a filename of a file obtained from a datastore to determine the tasks to be performed by the one or moreprocessor state computing system instances in accordance with at leastone embodiment. The process 1000 may be performed by the aforementionedscheduler computing system instance, which may process incoming nullfiles from the delayed diagnostics datastore.

In an embodiment, the scheduler computing system instance receives anotification from the delayed diagnostics datastore indicating that oneor more new null files have been added to the delayed diagnosticsdatastore by an index analysis computing system instance. The schedulercomputing system instance, in response to the notification from thedelayed diagnostics datastore, may obtain 1002 an index of the new nullfiles from the delayed diagnostics datastore. The index of null filesmay specify a filename for each of the null files stored in the delayeddiagnostics datastore, along with other information that can be used todetermine whether the filename has been evaluated. In some instances,the scheduler computing system instance may periodically access thedelayed diagnostics datastore to determine whether any new null fileshave been added. If so, the scheduler computing system instance mayobtain the index for these null files.

The scheduler computing system instance may evaluate the index for thesenull files to determine 1004 whether the index specifies any newfilenames that have not been processed by the scheduler computing systeminstance. The scheduler computing system instance may maintain a recordof processed filenames and, for each filename, a corresponding timestampdenoting a time at which the filename was processed. The schedulercomputing system instance may evaluate the index to identify, for eachfilename, a time at which the null file having the filename was added tothe delayed diagnostics datastore. Based at least in part on thistimestamp, the scheduler computing system instance may perform itsdetermination as to whether there are any new filenames to be processed.If the index does not specify any new filenames that can be processed,the scheduler computing system instance may continue to monitor thedelayed diagnostics datastore to obtain the index as it is updated bythe delayed diagnostics datastore in response to receiving new files.

If the index specifies one or more new filenames, the schedulercomputing system instance may evaluate 1006 the filename for each fileto determine 1008 what tasks are to be performed by the one or more datalog analysis computing system instances. For instance, the schedulercomputing system instance may access the task database and utilize theplacement of the characters for the filename to identify thecorresponding tasks. Additionally, the scheduler computing systeminstance may utilize the filename to identify one or more parameters forthese tasks. For instance, the scheduler computing system instance mayevaluate a particular string of characters of the filename to determinea time at which the tasks are to be performed. The filename may also beused to identify the one or more processor state data logs that are tobe obtained and analyzed by these data log analysis computing systeminstances.

Based at least in part on the tasks identified through the filename, aswell as the parameters for each of these tasks, the scheduler computingsystem instance may generate 1010 one or more task definitions for eachdata log analysis computing system instance that may be provisioned toaccess the virtual machine instance data log datastore. These taskdefinitions files may specify the tasks that are to be performed and theparameters for performance of these tasks. Further, the task definitionsfiles may specify other information that a data log analysis computingsystem instance may need to include in the data to be provided to thedata stream service. For example, a data definitions file may specifyinformation about an event such that the data obtained by the data loganalysis computing system instance may be associated with the event datafor the event obtained by the index analysis computing system instance.The scheduler computing system instance may add 1012 these taskdefinitions files to the delayed diagnostics notification subject, whichmay trigger the launch of the one or more data log analysis computingsystem instances.

FIG. 11 illustrates aspects of an example environment 1100 forimplementing aspects in accordance with various embodiments. As will beappreciated, although a web-based environment is used for purposes ofexplanation, different environments may be used, as appropriate, toimplement various embodiments. The environment includes an electronicclient device 1102, which can include any appropriate device operable tosend and/or receive requests, messages, or information over anappropriate network 1104 and, in some embodiments, convey informationback to a user of the device. Examples of such client devices includepersonal computers, cell phones, handheld messaging devices, laptopcomputers, tablet computers, set-top boxes, personal data assistants,embedded computer systems, electronic book readers, and the like. Thenetwork can include any appropriate network, including an intranet, theInternet, a cellular network, a local area network, a satellite networkor any other such network and/or combination thereof. Components usedfor such a system can depend at least in part upon the type of networkand/or environment selected. Many protocols and components forcommunicating via such a network are well known and will not bediscussed herein in detail. Communication over the network can beenabled by wired or wireless connections and combinations thereof. Inthis example, the network includes the Internet and/or other publiclyaddressable communications network, as the environment includes a webserver 1106 for receiving requests and serving content in responsethereto, although for other networks an alternative device serving asimilar purpose could be used as would be apparent to one of ordinaryskill in the art.

The illustrative environment includes at least one application server1108 and a data store 1110. It should be understood that there can beseveral application servers, layers or other elements, processes orcomponents, which may be chained or otherwise configured, which caninteract to perform tasks such as obtaining data from an appropriatedata store. Servers, as used herein, may be implemented in various ways,such as hardware devices or virtual computer systems. In some contexts,servers may refer to a programming module being executed on a computersystem. As used herein, unless otherwise stated or clear from context,the term “data store” refers to any device or combination of devicescapable of storing, accessing, and retrieving data, which may includeany combination and number of data servers, databases, data storagedevices, and data storage media, in any standard, distributed, virtual,or clustered environment. The application server can include anyappropriate hardware, software, and firmware for integrating with thedata store as needed to execute aspects of one or more applications forthe client device, handling some or all of the data access and businesslogic for an application. The application server may provide accesscontrol services in cooperation with the data store and is able togenerate content including, but not limited to, text, graphics, audio,video, and/or other content usable to be provided to the user, which maybe served to the user by the web server in the form of HyperText MarkupLanguage (“HTML”), Extensible Markup Language (“XML”), JavaScript,Cascading Style Sheets (“CSS”), JavaScript Object Notation (JSON),and/or another appropriate client-side structured language. Contenttransferred to a client device may be processed by the client device toprovide the content in one or more forms including, but not limited to,forms that are perceptible to the user audibly, visually, and/or throughother senses. The handling of all requests and responses, as well as thedelivery of content between the client device 1102 and the applicationserver 1108, can be handled by the web server using PHP: HypertextPreprocessor (“PHP”), Python, Ruby, Perl, Java, HTML, XML, JSON, and/oranother appropriate server-side structured language in this example.Further, operations described herein as being performed by a singledevice may, unless otherwise clear from context, be performedcollectively by multiple devices, which may form a distributed and/orvirtual system.

The data store 1110 can include several separate data tables, databases,data documents, dynamic data storage schemes, and/or other data storagemechanisms and media for storing data relating to a particular aspect ofthe present disclosure. For example, the data store illustrated mayinclude mechanisms for storing production data 1112 and user information1116, which can be used to serve content for the production side. Thedata store also is shown to include a mechanism for storing log data1114, which can be used for reporting, analysis or other such purposes.It should be understood that there can be many other aspects that mayneed to be stored in the data store, such as page image information andaccess rights information, which can be stored in any of the abovelisted mechanisms as appropriate or in additional mechanisms in the datastore 1110. The data store 1110 is operable, through logic associatedtherewith, to receive instructions from the application server 1108 andobtain, update or otherwise process data in response thereto. Theapplication server 1108 may provide static, dynamic, or a combination ofstatic and dynamic data in response to the received instructions.Dynamic data, such as data used in web logs (blogs), shoppingapplications, news services and other such applications may be generatedby server-side structured languages as described herein or may beprovided by a content management system (“CMS”) operating on, or underthe control of, the application server. In one example, a user, througha device operated by the user, might submit a search request for acertain type of item. In this case, the data store might access the userinformation to verify the identity of the user and can access thecatalog detail information to obtain information about items of thattype. The information then can be returned to the user, such as in aresults listing on a web page that the user is able to view via abrowser on the user device 1102. Information for a particular item ofinterest can be viewed in a dedicated page or window of the browser. Itshould be noted, however, that embodiments of the present disclosure arenot necessarily limited to the context of web pages, but may be moregenerally applicable to processing requests in general, where therequests are not necessarily requests for content.

Each server typically will include an operating system that providesexecutable program instructions for the general administration andoperation of that server and typically will include a computer-readablestorage medium (e.g., a hard disk, random access memory, read onlymemory, etc.) storing instructions that, when executed (i.e., as aresult of being executed) by a processor of the server, allow the serverto perform its intended functions.

The environment, in one embodiment, is a distributed and/or virtualcomputing environment utilizing several computer systems and componentsthat are interconnected via communication links, using one or morecomputer networks or direct connections. However, it will be appreciatedby those of ordinary skill in the art that such a system could operateequally well in a system having fewer or a greater number of componentsthan are illustrated in FIG. 11. Thus, the depiction of the system 1100in FIG. 11 should be taken as being illustrative in nature and notlimiting to the scope of the disclosure.

The various embodiments further can be implemented in a wide variety ofoperating environments, which in some cases can include one or more usercomputers, computing devices or processing devices which can be used tooperate any of a number of applications. User or client devices caninclude any of a number of computers, such as desktop, laptop, or tabletcomputers running a standard operating system, as well as cellular,wireless, and handheld devices running mobile software and capable ofsupporting a number of networking and messaging protocols. Such a systemalso can include a number of workstations running any of a variety ofcommercially available operating systems and other known applicationsfor purposes such as development and database management. These devicesalso can include other electronic devices, such as dummy terminals,thin-clients, gaming systems, and other devices capable of communicatingvia a network. These devices also can include virtual devices such asvirtual machines, hypervisors, and other virtual devices capable ofcommunicating via a network.

Various embodiments of the present disclosure utilize at least onenetwork that would be familiar to those skilled in the art forsupporting communications using any of a variety of commerciallyavailable protocols, such as Transmission Control Protocol/InternetProtocol (“TCP/IP”), User Datagram Protocol (“UDP”), protocols operatingin various layers of the Open System Interconnection (“OSI”) model, FileTransfer Protocol (“FTP”), Universal Plug and Play (“UpnP”), NetworkFile System (“NFS”), Common Internet File System (“CIFS”), andAppleTalk. The network can be, for example, a local area network, awide-area network, a virtual private network, the Internet, an intranet,an extranet, a public switched telephone network, an infrared network, awireless network, a satellite network, and any combination thereof. Insome embodiments, connection-oriented protocols may be used tocommunicate between network endpoints. Connection-oriented protocols(sometimes called connection-based protocols) are capable oftransmitting data in an ordered stream. Connection-oriented protocolscan be reliable or unreliable. For example, the TCP protocol is areliable connection-oriented protocol. Asynchronous Transfer Mode(“ATM”) and Frame Relay are unreliable connection-oriented protocols.Connection-oriented protocols are in contrast to packet-orientedprotocols such as UDP that transmit packets without a guaranteedordering.

In embodiments utilizing a web server, the web server can run any of avariety of server or mid-tier applications, including Hypertext TransferProtocol (“HTTP”) servers, FTP servers, Common Gateway Interface (“CGI”)servers, data servers, Java servers, Apache servers, and businessapplication servers. The server(s) also may be capable of executingprograms or scripts in response to requests from user devices, such asby executing one or more web applications that may be implemented as oneor more scripts or programs written in any programming language, such asJava®, C, C#, or C++, or any scripting language, such as Ruby, PHP,Perl, Python or TCL, as well as combinations thereof. The server(s) mayalso include database servers, including without limitation thosecommercially available from Oracle®, Microsoft®, Sybase and IBM® as wellas open-source servers such as MySQL, Postgres, SQLite, MongoDB, and anyother server capable of storing, retrieving, and accessing structured orunstructured data. Database servers may include table-based servers,document-based servers, unstructured servers, relational servers,non-relational servers, or combinations of these and/or other databaseservers.

The environment can include a variety of data stores and other memoryand storage media as discussed above. These can reside in a variety oflocations, such as on a storage medium local to (and/or resident in) oneor more of the computers or remote from any or all of the computersacross the network. In a particular set of embodiments, the informationmay reside in a storage-area network (“SAN”) familiar to those skilledin the art. Similarly, any necessary files for performing the functionsattributed to the computers, servers or other network devices may bestored locally and/or remotely, as appropriate. Where a system includescomputerized devices, each such device can include hardware elementsthat may be electrically coupled via a bus, the elements including, forexample, at least one central processing unit (“CPU” or “processor”), atleast one input device (e.g., a mouse, keyboard, controller, touchscreen, or keypad) and at least one output device (e.g., a displaydevice, printer, or speaker). Such a system may also include one or morestorage devices, such as disk drives, optical storage devices andsolid-state storage devices such as random access memory (“RAM”) orread-only memory (“ROM”), as well as removable media devices, memorycards, flash cards, etc.

Such devices also can include a computer-readable storage media reader,a communications device (e.g., a modem, a network card (wireless orwired), an infrared communication device, etc.), and working memory asdescribed above. The computer-readable storage media reader can beconnected with, or configured to receive, a computer-readable storagemedium, representing remote, local, fixed, and/or removable storagedevices as well as storage media for temporarily and/or more permanentlycontaining, storing, transmitting, and retrieving computer-readableinformation. The system and various devices also typically will includea number of software applications, modules, services, or other elementslocated within at least one working memory device, including anoperating system and application programs, such as a client applicationor web browser. In addition, customized hardware might also be usedand/or particular elements might be implemented in hardware, software(including portable software, such as applets) or both. Further,connection to other computing devices such as network input/outputdevices may be employed.

Storage media and computer readable media for containing code, orportions of code, can include any appropriate media known or used in theart, including storage media and communication media, such as, but notlimited to, volatile and non-volatile, removable and non-removable mediaimplemented in any method or technology for storage and/or transmissionof information such as computer readable instructions, data structures,program modules or other data, including RAM, ROM, Electrically ErasableProgrammable Read-Only Memory (“EEPROM”), flash memory or other memorytechnology, Compact Disc Read-Only Memory (“CD-ROM”), digital versatiledisk (DVD) or other optical storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape,magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices or any othermedium which can be used to store the desired information and which canbe accessed by the system device. Based on the disclosure and teachingsprovided herein, a person of ordinary skill in the art will appreciateother ways and/or methods to implement the various embodiments.

The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in anillustrative rather than a restrictive sense. It will, however, beevident that various modifications and changes may be made thereuntowithout departing from the broader spirit and scope of the invention asset forth in the claims.

Other variations are within the spirit of the present disclosure. Thus,while the disclosed techniques are susceptible to various modificationsand alternative constructions, certain illustrated embodiments thereofare shown in the drawings and have been described above in detail. Itshould be understood, however, that there is no intention to limit theinvention to the specific form or forms disclosed, but on the contrary,the intention is to cover all modifications, alternative constructionsand equivalents falling within the spirit and scope of the invention, asdefined in the appended claims.

The use of the terms “a” and “an” and “the” and similar referents in thecontext of describing the disclosed embodiments (especially in thecontext of the following claims) are to be construed to cover both thesingular and the plural, unless otherwise indicated herein or clearlycontradicted by context. The terms “comprising,” “having,” “including,”and “containing” are to be construed as open-ended terms (i.e., meaning“including, but not limited to,”) unless otherwise noted. The term“connected,” when unmodified and referring to physical connections, isto be construed as partly or wholly contained within, attached to orjoined together, even if there is something intervening. Recitation ofranges of values herein are merely intended to serve as a shorthandmethod of referring individually to each separate value falling withinthe range, unless otherwise indicated herein and each separate value isincorporated into the specification as if it were individually recitedherein. The use of the term “set” (e.g., “a set of items”) or “subset”unless otherwise noted or contradicted by context, is to be construed asa nonempty collection comprising one or more members. Further, unlessotherwise noted or contradicted by context, the term “subset” of acorresponding set does not necessarily denote a proper subset of thecorresponding set, but the subset and the corresponding set may beequal.

Conjunctive language, such as phrases of the form “at least one of A, B,and C,” or “at least one of A, B and C,” unless specifically statedotherwise or otherwise clearly contradicted by context, is otherwiseunderstood with the context as used in general to present that an item,term, etc., may be either A or B or C, or any nonempty subset of the setof A and B and C. For instance, in the illustrative example of a sethaving three members, the conjunctive phrases “at least one of A, B, andC” and “at least one of A, B and C” refer to any of the following sets:{A}, {B}, {C}, {A, B}, {A, C}, {B, C}, {A, B, C}. Thus, such conjunctivelanguage is not generally intended to imply that certain embodimentsrequire at least one of A, at least one of B and at least one of C eachto be present.

Operations of processes described herein can be performed in anysuitable order unless otherwise indicated herein or otherwise clearlycontradicted by context. Processes described herein (or variationsand/or combinations thereof) may be performed under the control of oneor more computer systems configured with executable instructions and maybe implemented as code (e.g., executable instructions, one or morecomputer programs or one or more applications) executing collectively onone or more processors, by hardware or combinations thereof. The codemay be stored on a computer-readable storage medium, for example, in theform of a computer program comprising a plurality of instructionsexecutable by one or more processors. The computer-readable storagemedium may be non-transitory. In some embodiments, the code is stored onset of one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media havingstored thereon executable instructions that, when executed (i.e., as aresult of being executed) by one or more processors of a computersystem, cause the computer system to perform operations describedherein. The set of non-transitory computer-readable storage media maycomprise multiple non-transitory computer-readable storage media and oneor more of individual non-transitory storage media of the multiplenon-transitory computer-readable storage media may lack all of the codewhile the multiple non-transitory computer-readable storage mediacollectively store all of the code.

Accordingly, in some examples, computer systems are configured toimplement one or more services that singly or collectively performoperations of processes described herein. Such computer systems may, forinstance, be configured with applicable hardware and/or software thatenable the performance of the operations. Further, computer systems thatimplement various embodiments of the present disclosure may, in someexamples, be single devices and, in other examples, be distributedcomputer systems comprising multiple devices that operate differentlysuch that the distributed computer system performs the operationsdescribed herein and such that a single device may not perform alloperations.

The use of any and all examples, or exemplary language (e.g., “such as”)provided herein, is intended merely to better illuminate embodiments ofthe invention and does not pose a limitation on the scope of theinvention unless otherwise claimed. No language in the specificationshould be construed as indicating any non-claimed element as essentialto the practice of the invention.

Embodiments of this disclosure are described herein, including the bestmode known to the inventors for carrying out the invention. Variationsof those embodiments may become apparent to those of ordinary skill inthe art upon reading the foregoing description. The inventors expectskilled artisans to employ such variations as appropriate and theinventors intend for embodiments of the present disclosure to bepracticed otherwise than as specifically described herein. Accordingly,the scope of the present disclosure includes all modifications andequivalents of the subject matter recited in the claims appended heretoas permitted by applicable law. Moreover, any combination of theabove-described elements in all possible variations thereof isencompassed by the scope of the present disclosure unless otherwiseindicated herein or otherwise clearly contradicted by context.

All references, including publications, patent applications, andpatents, cited herein are hereby incorporated by reference to the sameextent as if each reference were individually and specifically indicatedto be incorporated by reference and were set forth in its entiretyherein.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system, comprising: one or more processors; andmemory that stores computer-executable instructions that, if executed,cause the system to: implement an index analysis computing systeminstance that: obtains, from a virtual machine instance data logdatastore, a data log for a virtual computing system server, the datalog specifying data associated with one or more events encountered bythe virtual computing system server; identifies, based at least in parton the data associated with the one or more events, one or more tasks tobe performed to obtain processor state data for the virtual computingsystem server associated with the one or more events; generates, basedat least in part on the one or more tasks to be performed, a metadatafor a file, the metadata representing the one or more tasks; stores thefile within a second datastore; and updates an index of the datastore tospecify the metadata for the file; and implement a scheduler computingsystem instance that: obtains the index of the second datastore;identifies the metadata for the file; decodes the metadata for the fileto identify the one or more tasks to be performed; generates, based atleast in part on the one or more tasks to be performed, a taskdefinitions file specifying the one or more tasks to be performed; andprovides the task definitions file so that one or more data logs can beobtained to perform the one or more tasks.
 2. The system of claim 1,wherein the task definitions file indicates a time at which the one ormore tasks are to be performed and information required to obtain theone or more data logs.
 3. The system of claim 1, wherein the schedulercomputing system instance further transmits the task definitions file toa diagnostics notification subject to which the data log analysiscomputing system instance is subscribed to provide the task definitionsfile to the data log analysis computing system instance.
 4. The systemof claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions further causethe system to implement an analysis computing system instance that:obtains the task definitions file; determines the one or more tasks tobe performed; accesses the virtual machine instance data log datastoreto obtain the one or more data logs; performs the one or more tasks togenerate processor state information for the virtual computing systemserver; and transmits the processor state information for the virtualcomputing system server to a data processing datastore to be processed.5. A computer-implemented method, comprising: under the control of oneor more computer systems configured with executable instructions,obtaining a data log for a virtual computing system server, the data logspecifying data associated with one or more events encountered by thevirtual computing system server; identifying, based at least in part onthe data associated with the one or more events, one or more tasks to beperformed to obtain processor state data for the virtual computingsystem server associated with the one or more events; generating, basedat least in part on the one or more tasks to be performed, a metadatafor a file, the metadata representing the one or more tasks; storing thefile; identifying the one or more tasks based at least in part on themetadata for the file; and performing the one or more tasks.
 6. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein the file is a null filehaving no data therein.
 7. The computer-implemented method of claim 5,wherein the metadata for the file further represents one or moreconditions for which the one or more tasks are to be performed.
 8. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein the data log for thevirtual computing system server is obtained in response to anotification indicating presence of an index for the virtual computingsystem server that is used to identify the data log.
 9. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein the method furthercomprises updating an index of a datastore to specify the metadata forthe file to enable identification of the one or more tasks based atleast in part on the metadata for the file.
 10. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 5, wherein the one or more tasks include accessing adatastore to obtain processor state data logs to obtain the processorstate data for the virtual computing system server associated with theone or more events.
 11. The computer-implemented method of claim 5,wherein the metadata for the file further represents informationassociated with the one or more events to cause data generated as aresult of performance of the one or more tasks to be aggregated with thedata associated with one or more events.
 12. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 5, wherein the method further comprises specifying,within a datastore usable to decode the metadata, the one or more tasksand the metadata generated based at least in part on the one or moretasks.
 13. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium havingstored thereon executable instructions that, as a result of beingexecuted by one or more processors of a computer system, cause thecomputer system to at least: obtain a data log for a virtual computingsystem server; identify, based at least in part on data associated withone or more events specified in the data log, one or more tasks to beperformed associated with the one or more events; create a file having ametadata based at least in part on the one or more tasks to beperformed, the metadata representing the one or more tasks; and generatea task definitions file based at least in part on the one or more tasksrepresented in the metadata for the file.
 14. The non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the instructionsfurther cause the computer system to: receive a notification indicatingpresence of an index for the virtual computing system server; andutilize the index for the virtual computing system server to determine astorage location of the data log for the virtual computing systemserver.
 15. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim14, wherein a datastore wherein the index is stored transmits thenotification in response to receiving the index from the virtualcomputing system server.
 16. The non-transitory computer-readablestorage medium of claim 13, wherein the metadata for the file is afilename of the file.
 17. The non-transitory computer-readable storagemedium of claim 13, wherein the metadata further represents informationassociated with the one or more events to cause data generated as aresult of performance of the one or more tasks to be processed with thedata associated with one or more events.
 18. The non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the metadatafurther represents one or more conditions for which the one or moretasks can be performed by a data log analysis computing system instancethat obtains data logs to perform the one or more tasks.
 19. Thenon-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein theone or more tasks include accessing a datastore to obtain one or moreprocessor state data logs from a datastore to obtain processor statedata for the virtual computing system server associated with the one ormore events.
 20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium ofclaim 13, wherein the instructions further cause the computer system toupdate a datastore that is used to decode the metadata to specify thatthe metadata corresponds to the one or more tasks.